📖 Queen Victoria's Bathing Machine by Gloria Whelan. Based on a true story, this is the tale of how Prince Albert devised a contraption that permitted his wife, Queen Victoria, to go for a swim without having to expose herself wearing only a (very modest) bathing suit. Silly and sweet. – Elementary

📖 Victoria: Portrait of a Queen by Catherine Reef. This 200-page chapter book biography of Queen Victoria is packed with information and filled with archival images. The endnotes include a family tree and a bibliography. This is a great choice for an older student with a deep interest in the subject. – Middle • High

📖 Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London by Andrea Warren. "Provoked by the horrors he saw every day, Charles Dickens wrote novels that were originally intended as instruments for social change — to save his country’s children." Both literary biography and history, Warren interweaves the life of Charles Dickens with the plight of the poor in Victorian London. – Middle • High

📖 Vile Victorians and Villainous Victorians by Terry Deary. These two titles in the Horrible Histories series examine the less savory aspects of the Victorian Era: work life, school life, law and punishment, and more. – Elementary • Middle

▶️ Horrible Histories TV show. Episodes of the popular “Horrible Histories” sketch show are available to stream on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and YouTube. Search our Horrible Histories Sketch List to find every “Vile Victorians” sketch from Seasons 1–5. – Elementary • Middle 

📖 Barmy British Empire by Terry Deary. This title in the funny and irreverent Horrible Histories series reveals plenty of unpleasant information about the British Empire. It’s entertaining, informative, and disturbing. – Elementary • Middle

🔗 Content Connection: Modern India. Learn about India’s struggle to gain independence from British rule.

📖 Black Potatoes by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Bartoletti’s award-winning Black Potatoes tells the in-depth story of the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1850 through the eyes of the people who suffered through years of hunger and hardship. Includes many first-hand quotes as well as contemporary cartoons and illustrations. The book also gives background information on Ireland and its contentious history with England. An excellent upper middle or early high school read. – Middle • High

📖 Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff. Here’s a good literature link to accompany a study of the Irish Potato Famine: “Nory Ryan's family has lived on Maidin Bay on the west coast of Ireland for generations, raising a pig and a few chickens, planting potatoes, getting by. Times are never easy, but this year, a terrible blight attacks the potatoes. No crop means starvation. Twelve-year-old Nory must summon the courage and ingenuity to find food, to find hope, to find a way to help her family survive.” – Elementary • Middle

📖 Jeremy Visick by David Wiseman. When twelve-year-old Matthew finds an old tombstone in a graveyard, he is drawn to help Jeremy Visick, a boy his age who was lost in a Cornish mining disaster a century before. – Elementary • Middle

📖 Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. This Carnegie Medal winner is a classic: “When his brother contracts measles, Tom is sent into quarantine with his aunt and uncle in the country where he expects to spend a lonely summer. But when the grandfather clock in the hall chimes thirteen times, Tom is transported back in time to a Victorian-era garden where he meets a young, lonely girl named Hatty.” – Elementary • Middle

📖 Dodger by Terry Pratchett. Dodger “combines high comedy with deep wisdom in a tale of one remarkable boy's rise in a fantasy-infused Victorian London..From Dodger's encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd, to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.” This Printz Honor Book from acclaimed author Terry Pratchett is a good literature link for older students. – Middle • High

📖 The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron. Set in 1852 Victorian England, here is a fun work of historical fiction, suitable for older readers: “When a rumor that her uncle is squandering away the family fortune surfaces, Katharine Tulman is sent to his estate to have him committed to an asylum. But instead of a lunatic, Katharine discovers a genius inventor with his own set of childlike rules, who is employing a village of nine hundred people rescued from the workhouses of London.” – Middle • High